Why Content Calendars Are So Useful For Businesses
Have you ever noticed how some of your favorite brands always seem to be on mark with their content? Magazines appear to flawlessly publish related stories in their monthly issues. Clothing stores begin filling your inbox with Christmas ads as soon as November 1st hits like clockwork. If it seems too perfectly synchronized with the current events or time of year, it’s because it is: Most businesses have begun using content calendars. A content calendar (related to editorial and social media calendars) is a resource teams use to plan and organize all content marketing activity. These are usually created at least a month in advance, while many well known brands create their content calendars a year in advance.
Here are 3 quick reasons why you should consider implementing content calendars for your business. If you already use one, there's a bonus suggestion listing the top content calendar tools on the market today.
1. Content calendars organize content & campaigns around important dates/holidays
Having the exact dates in mind for when you should release an article or social media post will help you maintain a working schedule for content output and resonate with your audience. People are more prone to click on content relating to holiday meals and gift ideas around Thanksgiving and Christmas than they are in the middle of June.
2. Having a content calendar can assist in content brainstorming
Knowing that the content you’ll be releasing should relate to a holiday, awareness month, business anniversary, or all other important dates will help you come up with relevant ideas. If you know there are quarterly tech conferences your start-up will attend, planning to publish a press release leading up to the date and an article following will help maximize on trend exposure opportunities.
3. Over time, you will gain a deeper understanding of successful content
Maintaining a consistent content calendar will yield highly useful metric information for your marketing purposes. Which formats get the most views? Best time of week to post? Increase in sales during certain month? You’ll be able to easily reference back to your calendar to see which pieces of content were posted at that time, and plan to utilize more or less of it for future purposes.
